Button-feed mechanism for button-attaching machines



S. L. SNEIERSON.

BUTTON FEED MECHANISM FOR BUTTON ATTACHING MACHINES.

APPLICATION FlLED JULYB, IB IB- RENEWED AUG. 4,1919.

1,339,324. E 'PatentedMay4,1920.

flzaizue l Z QS'zzeiefiSort UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

SAMUEL I. SNEIERSON, OF ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO INDEPENDENT BUTTON FASTENER MACHINE C0,, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.

BUTTON-FEED MECHANISM FOR BUTTON-ATTACHING MACHINES.

Specification of Letterslatent.

Patented May 4, 1920.

Application filed July 8, 1918, Serial No. 243,784. Renewed August 4, 1919. Serial No. 315,284.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I SAMUEL L. SNEIER- soN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Roxbury, county of Suffolk, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Button-Feed Mechanism for Button-Attaching Machines, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to button attaching machines and particularly to the button feed of such a machine.

The raceway for conducting the buttons in column to the setting device has usually consisted of a slotted slideway upon which the heads of the buttons are rested with each eye of the button in the slot. In certain types of machines in which wire is fed through the eye of the button and then formed into a staple, provision is made at the end of the raceway proper for receiving the button and holding it in a suitable position to receive the wire accurately in the eye. Usually the more conventional type of shoe button has a substantially hemispherical head, that is to say it has a convex cur vature on its upper face and is substantially fiat on its lower face in which the eye is set. The feeding of such conventional buttons is easy and simple. here a button however, is of more fanciful shape, the guiding and positioning of the button involves some dii'iiculty.

lVhile fancy buttons have been fed in the connnercial. machines of the art, their action has not been as consistent and smooth as .in the case of the conventional shoe button.

The growing tendency toward styles of fancy buttons has made it necessary to provide more efficient means for guiding and positioning such fancy buttons and it is the object of my present invention to provide certain improvements for handling such buttons.

While my invention is capable of application to various types of machine, I have shown it in connection with a machine employing a plate on which the button rests while receiving the wire for its staple. This plate is shown in Letters Patent to Ston man No. 1,092,642, April 7 1914. I accomplish the desired result by providing a channeled raceway in which the edgesof the slot are relieved to permit more freedom of motion of the button, and the supporting plate or other supporting member being provided with an opening in a manner which I will more fully describe hereinafter so that buttons of varied configuration may readily be passed through the chute and suitably supported in the wire receiving position and during the staple forming operation.

Throughout the specification and drawings like reference characters are employed to indicate corresponding parts and in the drawings,

Figure 1 is a vertical section of a raceway in accordance with my invention,

Fig. 2, a plan view of the same,

Fig. 3, an enlarged longitudinal sectional detail of the plate end of the raceway,

Fig. 4 a still further enlargement of the supporting plate in cross section and I Fig. 5 a group of characteristic buttons.

In the drawings, I have shown only so much of a button attaching machine as is necessary to illustrate my invention. In these drawings the top plate of the machine, indicated at 1, carries a raceway 2 slotted at 3 for the reception of the button eye and relieved as at 4 as will be hereinafter described. Attached to the plate 1 is a button hopper 5 having a corresponding raceway 6 which connects with the raceway 2 of the feed of the buttons. The buttons are placed. on the raceway 6 by suitable means which it is not necessary to illustrate. At the lower end of the plate 1 and at the foot of the raceway 2 are a pair of plates 9.

These plates 9 have straight edges 7 and intermediate curved portions 8 so that when the two plates are set side by side there is left a slot between the edges 7 corres onding with the slot 3 of the raceway 2. entrally of, the plate, the two cut away portions 7 form between their edges a kite shaped opening in which a button 13 may lodge. The edges of this opening are beveled as at 10 (see Fig. 4) so'that the button may settle therein permitting the lower part of the button and the eye to sink low enough in the plate so that the wire may be fed through the eye of the button. In Fig. 3 is shown a forming piece 11 in its position against the button, the forming piece being cut away as at 12 to conform to the lower part of the eye and the lower part of the button, and having a supporting relation to the lower part of the button head as it projects through the elongated enlargement formed centrally between the plates 9.

In operation the buttons pass down the slideway 2. The configurations of the lower faces of buttons of a great variety of forms are received, centered and guided throughout the cut away portion 4: of the slideway 2. Characteristic types of buttons are illustrated in Fig; 5. These buttons are smoothly uided down the raceway 2 to the plates 9. Vhen the button reaches the kite shaped opening centrally of the plates 9, it is permitted to settle into the beveled edges 10 of such opening thus bringing the lower part of the button and its eye low enough down to receive readily the wire W as it is fed through the eye previously to the staple forming operation around the forming block 11.

Various modifications may obviously be made in the construction and arrangement of the raceway and plates to satisfy the varied and fanciful designs and configurations, but for the known commercial forms of buttons, the form and arrangement shown have been found highly satisfactory in use.

What I therefore claim and desire to secure by Letters Patentis:

1. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway having an inclined button head supporting surface and a central longitudinal eye receiving slot, the edges of the intersection of the said slot with said supporting surface being relieved, and a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having a tapered enlargement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire.

2. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway having an inclined button head supporting surface and a central longitudinal eye receiving slot, the edges of the intersection of the said slot with said su orting surface bein relieved, and a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having a tapered and beveled enlargement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire.

3. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button and formed into' a staple-like fastening, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway having an inclined button head supporting surfaceand a central longitudinal eye receiving slot, the edges of the intersection of the said slot with said supporting surface being relieved, a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having a tapered. and beveled ens largement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire, and a former removably disposed below said button support in the line of travel of said button eye and notched to receive said eye.

4. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button and formed into a staple-like fastening, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway having an inclined button head supporting surface and a central longitudinal eye receiving slot, the edges of the intersection of the said slot with said supporting surface being relieved, a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having a tapered and beveled enlargement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire, and a former removably disposed below said button support in the line of travel of said button eye and notched to receive said eye, the upper edge of said former being beveled to have a supporting relation to the lower side of the button head as it projects through said elongated enlargement of the slot.

5. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway, and a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having an enlargement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire, the walls of said enlargement shaped to allow the button head to settle therein with its eye disposed in the line of feed of the wire.

6. In a button attaching machine of the class wherein wire is adapted to be fed through the eye of the button and formed into a staple-like fastening, button feed mechanism comprising a raceway, a slotted button support at the foot of said raceway having an enlargement of its slot above the line of feed of the wire, the walls of said enlargement shaped to allow the button head to settle therein with its eye disposed in the line of feed of the wire, and a former removably disposed below said enlargement in the line of travel of said button eye and notched to receive said eye, the upper edge of said former being beveled to have a supporting relation to the lower side of the button head as it projects through said enlargement of the slot.

In testimony whereof I aliiX my signature in presence of two witnesses.

SAMUEL L. SNEIERSONv Witnesses:

MARION F. Wniss, GEORGE E. RAwLINes. W '1 

